---
title: Sources
description: Learn about sources in Materialize.
menu:
  main:
    parent: concepts
    weight: 10
    identifier: 'concepts-sources'
aliases:
  - /get-started/key-concepts/#sources
---

## Overview

Sources describe external systems you want Materialize to read data from, and
provide details about how to decode and interpret that data. A simplistic way to
think of this is that sources represent streams and their schemas; this isn't
entirely accurate, but provides an illustrative mental model.

In terms of SQL, sources are similar to a combination of tables and
clients.

- Like tables, sources are structured components that users can read from.
- Like clients, sources are responsible for reading data. External
  sources provide all of the underlying data to process.

By looking at what comprises a source, we can develop a sense for how this
combination works.

[//]: # "TODO(morsapaes) Add details about source persistence."

## Source components

Sources consist of the following components:

Component      | Use                                                                                               | Example
---------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|---------
**Connector**  | Provides actual bytes of data to Materialize                                                      | Kafka
**Format**     | Structures of the external source's bytes, i.e. its schema                                        | Avro
**Envelope**   | Expresses how Materialize should handle the incoming data + any additional formatting information | Upsert

### Connectors

Materialize bundles native connectors for the following external systems:

{{< include-md file="shared-content/multilink-box-native-connectors.md" >}}

For details on the syntax, supported formats and features of each connector, check out the dedicated `CREATE SOURCE` documentation pages.


## Sources and clusters

Sources require compute resources in Materialize, and so need to be associated
with a [cluster](/concepts/clusters/). If possible, dedicate a cluster just for
sources.

See also [Operational guidelines](/manage/operational-guidelines/).

## Related pages

- [`CREATE SOURCE`](/sql/create-source)